Ricardo Cavada
Pontejos (Cantabria) 1954

The leading light of Cantabrian painting since the 1980s, Ricardo Cavada’s work evolved from expressionist figuration with a broad use of colour towards lyrical abstraction at the end of the 1980s. He further developed this trend in the following decades, with a progressively reductionist language towards a minimalism of forms and the use of colour involving liquid glazes and material blotches; he thus combines gesture and order, construction and expressiveness based on geometric grids and wefts in his work. He also uses the sensuality of curves or strips of colour, in a reflective game of confrontation and contrast of opposites that seeks the essence of painting, colour and light as substantial elements of the medium.

Since his first solo show at Castro Urdiales Municipal Exhibition Hall (Cantabria, 1982), Cavada has exhibited his work at national centres and galleries. Particularly noteworthy are those at the Santander Municipal Museum of Fine Art (1984); San Telmo Museum (Donostia/San Sebastián, 1994); Casas del Águila y la Parra (Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, 1996); and Sala Robayera (Miengo, Cantabria, 2001). He has also taken part in group shows at the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid, 1980); Sala de Armas de la Ciudadela (Pamplona/Iruña, 1996); “la Caixa” Foundation (Palma, 2000);  Culturgest (Lisboa, 2002); Bass Museum of Art (Miami, United States of America, 2003); Gas Natural Fenosa Contemporary Art Museum (La Coruña, 2004); and Malaga Contemporary Art Centre (2007).

Roberto Díaz